The Perfect Coaching Duo
We’ve been running club lacrosse teams for about 10 years now. Over the past ten years, we’ve learned a lot about how to build the most effective coaching staffs for our teams. Today, for this week’s Whiteboard Wednesday session, the FLG Club Directors sat down and brainstormed this idea.
When it comes to coaching club lacrosse, it’s usually best and most effective to have 2 full-time coaches for every club lacrosse team in your program. When analyzing the two people that should work together, it’s important to understand that these coaches must agree upon certain cornerstone values. If one coach only cares about winning and the other coach only cares about developing, they will never be able to work together for long. Secondly, it’s important to understand that your coaching duo must compliment each other on certain characteristics. For example, if you have two coaches that only care about offense and scoring goals, the defensive players on your team will suffer and lack the attention they deserve.
For the sake of educating our followers on what it takes to build the perfect club lacrosse coaching-duo, we’ve organized our thoughts below:
Below are 3 cornerstone values that BOTH coaches must agree upon in order for them to have a successful club season:
- Respect – both coaches must respect one another, they must respect their team, their program, and the game itself.
- Success – both coaches must have the same definition of success. In our program, we define success by our player’s ability to continuously develop into being the best studlete they can be. All of the FLG coaches share the same definition of success.
- Relationships – both coaches need to have a good working relationship. In the FLG program, we have coaches who are married, we have coaches who are best friends, and we have coaches who have been coaching together for years. This makes a big impact as they work with their teams. Coaches who have a great working relationship, provide an culture that kids want to be a part of.
Below are 3 traits that coaches can compliment each other on, helping them have a successful club season:
- Personality – A coach that is loud and vocal, can be complimented by a coach that’s calm and cordial. A loud coach allows player’s to get instruction while they’re running around on the field. Having a calm, quiet coach can be good when players need to be settled down or need coaching on the sidelines.
- Coaching Style – A coach that is constantly criticizing, can be complimented by a coach that is constantly motivating. It’s great to have a coach that critiques players and expects a lot out of them. However, young players need positive encouragement as well. It’s great to have that extra boost of confidence when needed.
- Age – It’s great to compliment an older, more experienced coach with a younger, energetic coach. Older coaches have experience dealing with parents, important situations, emergency situations, and in-game adjustments. Younger coaches are closer to the game, might relate better to the kids (depending on their age), and could serve as a mentor or someone for the player’s to look up to.
It’s important to understand the difference between what coaches should agree upon vs. compliment each other on. If you do this and hire coaches that follow those guidelines, your club will be that much closer to finding the perfect coaching duos.
